He was staying away from Sandra.

“You know I’m not one to gossip,” Kim said, as usual when gossiping, “but I have seen Sandra a few times in town and she looks terrible. I hate to say this, but I think she might be drinking heavily.”

Sitting next to her mother on the sofa after dinner, Beth texted the info to Hayley and Taylor while promising complete discretion.

“Yeah, I don’t like to gossip, either, Mom,” she said, her thumbs still jabbing the message:

SANDRA B IS A DRUNK. MR. B HATES HER.

Of course, Sandra Berkley knew what everyone thought of her. Her mother, Nancy, had made it abundantly clear the morning of Katelyn’s funeral service.

“If you’d kept your hands out of the liquor cabinet, our only grandchild might still be alive,” she had said.

Sandra could accept some blame but not all of it. She could also fire it back at her mom, telling her that if she hadn’t squandered her granddaughter’s college fund on a wine fridge, Katelyn might still be alive.

But she didn’t. Sandra didn’t say a word. She just pulled hermit-crab tight into herself. She no longer cared if she lived or died. And yes, she had a drinking problem, but right then drinking actually seemed to be helping. Feeling numb was better than feeling the sharp pain of regret and loss.

She sat on Katelyn’s bed, a drink in her hand and tears streaming from her eyes. All around her were the memories of the daughter whom she’d lost long before Christmas night. How was it that they’d been so close once and then, nothing? Sandra loved her little girl. She had been the Girl Scout Daisy troop leader only because she couldn’t bear another woman taking the job and taking away time that she’d have with her little girl.

She’d taken Katelyn to every class, school function, or retreat that was preceded by a school permission slip. They’d been two peas in a pod. Inseparable. As she sat there sobbing, it was hard to pin down just what it was that had caused the tectonic rift between the two of them. It could well have been her drinking. It could have been the fact that she and Harper weren’t getting along. The restaurant was making money, but not enough to fuel the dreams Sandra had for herself.

For herself. For her family.

Sandra sipped her drink—rum, whisky, or vodka, whatever she had in the house. She no longer even bothered with mixers. As she tried to steady herself, her eyes landed on the laptop sitting on Katelyn’s nightstand, a garage-sale discovery transformed with six coats of spray paint into a shabby chic table. She recalled how Hayley and Taylor Ryan had been standing over it the day they came to bring those awful cookies. She set her drink down and pulled the laptop closer. She plunked her shaky fingers against the keys, but when the window opened it revealed the need for a password.

Password? What in the world was Katelyn’s password?

Suddenly, her heart rate accelerated. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, trying feverishly to come up with her dead daughter’s password. She hadn’t a clue. KATIEBUG, a nickname Harper had called Katelyn when she was young? SKATELYN, another she had in elementary school when she Rollerbladed everywhere in Port Gamble?

Nothing.

They never had any animals, so there was no obvious pet name to try.

Sandra pushed the laptop aside, took a big gulp from her drink, and began to cry. Hard. A veritable river of tears. She rested her puffy, red face in her hands and let out a guttural scream. At that moment, she realized that she was, now and forever, alone. She dropped her hands, which were clenched hard against the comforter.

“Katie! Why did you do this? Why?”

Of course there was no answer, and as drunk as she was, Sandra Berkley knew there couldn’t be one. As she picked up her glass for the last swallow, something caught her attention. It was on the floor, next to the bed. For a second, Sandra thought it was the handle of a toothbrush.

No, maybe a digital thermometer.

She dried her eyes on the sleeve of her blouse and extended her arm to reach it.

Her heart started to race faster.

What was that doing in Katelyn’s room?

She held it close to her blurry eyes to make sure she was seeing correctly.

And she was.

It was a pregnancy test wand. Sandra couldn’t believe her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t a freak accident after all? Had Katelyn killed herself because she was pregnant? Sandra was reeling by then. She wondered why her daughter hadn’t come to her, hadn’t asked her for help. She clutched the wand like she could choke it away in her fingers. It was so unreal. So unexpected. So very, very shocking. She didn’t even know Katelyn was having sex.

She was only fifteen! What is the matter with these kids today? Can’t they wait to have sex until they get their driver’s license and can go somewhere? Like what Harper and I did when we were sixteen?

chapter 31

HAYLEY RYAN AND COLTON JAMES WERE IN HIS BEDROOM—with the door open—as the teenager with a mass of dark hair proudly demonstrated an app that he’d finished programming the night before. Although Colton had been up all night, his energy level was completely unfettered. The app might not be a million-dollar idea, but it was definitely a viable one. He was hoping to make enough to buy a new car. Maybe he could convince his mom that the car she never drove could be traded in too. He was thinking big, and Hayley was suitably impressed.

“It is a simple idea,” he said, “using existing police-scanner information that’s already out there on the Net. I had to link up with a bunch of guys with servers in their basements. That was kind of tough, but I managed. I think they think I’m a lot older than I am.”

Hayley sat on a stool next to Colton’s ginormous computer screen. She inched herself a little closer than necessary to see, but that was only so she could be close to him. He smelled delicious. Like Colton.

“How does it work?” she asked, brushing a stray blond lock from her forehead as she leaned a smidgen closer—close enough to brush against him a little. Sure they were dating, but nothing other than a once-a-week make-out session had transpired between the pair. She wanted to go further—not as far as they could go—but it just didn’t seem like they were there yet. She liked everything about Colton, but she wasn’t convinced she was in love with him.

Hayley wasn’t sure what that kind of love really felt like. She tried to dissect it in the analytical way that she did with a lot of things. She tried to measure her feelings for Colton against the feelings she had for her mother, father, and sister. Of course, those feelings weren’t the same kind of love, and she accepted that she’d know when the time was right and if the feelings she had were of the depth needed for the most intimate experience she could imagine. She’d dreamed about it more than once, especially after they’d kissed the first time behind the twin 50,000-gallon water towers on the edge of Port Gamble’s business district. She could still feel his lips on her from that encounter. All other kisses would be measured by the first one. She was glad Colton had been the boy of her dreams.

Colton flashed a big, white smile. “Users select the location that they want to keep tabs on. It allows them to listen in as the police, fire, and other emergency responders chat in a monotone about people and their messed-up lives. I’m not kidding about messed up. Seriously messed up.”

Hayley was interested. “Like what?”

“Like a guy was in trouble because his wife or girlfriend kicked him out of the house with nothing but his cell phone.”

“So what’s the big deal?” she asked.

“I mean nothing,” he said, laughing. “Dude was butt naked.”

Hayley laughed too. “Okay, that is messed up.”